How much should you be saving for retirement? Are there savings benchmarks by ages? Is saving different for women? These are all questions that come up frequently (and no one really has all the answers) that I thought we should talk about them today. (Pictured: Marc by Marc Jacobs Wallet, on sale at Bloomingdale’s — was $148, now $103.60.)

A few notes from poking around the Internet:

– According to the Department of Labor, on average women live longer than men, invest more conservatively, work fewer years (or work part-time/freelance jobs without access to a retirement plan). Joy! MoneyLiving notes that women also have higher health care expenses, in part due to maternity expenses, but also higher premiums. [Read more…]

To be honest, the value of tax-deferred investing isn’t something I understood until really, really recently. So I thought we’d review some of the main vehicles for tax-savvy savings here, answering — for each, the main questions on everyone’s mind: